Beyond Just Devices: Why We Should Be Teaching Skills and Not Tech

As I've written in this blog before, the key to integrating technology into education is not the devices and technologies themselves.  Our job as educators is to teach children skills that will enable them to process and generate information.  If we simply teach them a single device or technology, they will only be able to operate that device or technology.  If we teach them a skill, they will be able to accomplish that skill with a wide variety of devices and technologies.

However, the approach of most school districts has been to focus on the technology itself.  This approach leads to failure.  If you give every student a Chromebook and all they do with it is word-processing, are they learning a skill that is any different than writing by hand on paper?  Of course not!  Does technology allow us to accomplish tasks and learn skills beyond what we could before the technology?  Yes!  So, what are those skills?

Skills that Technology Helps Students Learn and Practice (Adapted from ISTE)

1.  Creativity and Innovation

Students can express creativity in a variety of forms: writing, drawing, dance, etc.  In whatever way students decide to express their creativity, the primary method for communicating that creativity is through technology.  Even though dance doesn't directly use technology, students learn dance steps from YouTube, film and critique themselves with their smartphones, and post performances to Vimeo.  Consider letting students use technology to explore their creativity and capture it.

2.  Communication and Collaboration

We all know that communication is a vital skill.  In the classroom, we learn personal communication, but consider your own life.  How much of your communication is virtual?  I would estimate that most of us use technology to communicate 75% or more of the time.  Students need to learn to communicate via email, text, blogs, conference calls, etc.  Have you ever thought of students needing to learn how to conduct and participate in a virtual conference call?  

Collaboration is similar.  Teaching, and many other jobs, was once a solitary occupation with the teacher shutting the door and working alone.  That is no longer the case.  Most occupations require collaboration on work and communication, usually asynchronously, about the work.

3.  Research

For me, this skill is the most important.  At one time, our knowledge was limited.  All the known facts about a subject could be mastered by a student given enough time.  However, our society now generates so much new information on a daily basis that it is impossible to know everything about a subject.  Additionally, the majority of that information is no longer in printed media.  Students must be able to conduct effective searches for information and then evaluate that information.  This skill is the easiest to teach in the classroom as well since we need students to access and relate information constantly.

4.  Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

This skill relates to research.  At its core, critical thinking and problem solving is simply taking a wide range of information, ordering and connecting that information, and then acting upon that information.  Students need to be able to gather information and see how it connects and can be applied to new situations.  With this skill, they can use the information to solve problems in their environment.

5.  Digital Citizenship and Technology Operations

I have grouped these two skills because they are the only skills that require teaching technology in isolation of other skills.  Because we as a society are still in the developing stages of technology integration, students lack some skills related to the technology itself.  Consider when the abacus was invented.  Without instruction, the abacus is just beads on strings.  So, how to use an abacus had to be taught.  The same is true of new technologies.  When they first appear, they must be taught.

Tomorrow, I will be posting multiple ideas on using technology to teach these 5 skills.